Joe’s Notes: Why Is the MLS So Bad?

I used to think there was a good reason the quality of play in Major League Soccer was so bad. Then, someone showed me the Forbes valuations of professional soccer clubs.

I’m not a soccer snob. I don’t follow soccer much at all, really. I appreciate the intricacies of the leagues and cups overseas, and I respect how much both local clubs and national teams can mean to people. By subjective preference, I’ve always been more a fan of baseball, football, and basketball, and occasionally hockey or other sports. Can I tell the difference between an MLS team and an EPL team, watching them on TV? I’m not sure. I don’t watch MLS teams enough to know. I know I’ve seen other professional soccer that isn’t on the level of the men’s World Cup, so I’m not incapable of distinguishing between quality, but I can’t imagine my brain is fine-tuned to process the abilities of soccer teams based on visuals alone.

Back before Disney gave FiveThirtyEight the knife, the site would keep a tally ranking 641 different international men’s soccer teams. You can still see it today, frozen back to last June. Coincidentally, it was frozen only thirteen days after Forbes updated its soccer valuations. This is a fairly direct comparison, preserved for our short period of the future.

On the FiveThirtyEight list, the best MLS club ranked 146^th in the world as of last June. It’s possible the ranking was a little too positive—FiveThirtyEight was only considering 641 clubs, meaning it could have theoretically missed a great team in an inconspicuous league—but the Philadelphia Union were somewhere around 146^th-best in the world. LAFC was MLS’s next-best, ranked 150^th on the list, and it’s LAFC on whom we want to focus, because LAFC was valued as the most valuable soccer franchise in the United States. Per Forbes, LAFC was worth one billion dollars as of May, the same amount as the Miami Marlins (MLB’s least valuable franchise) and more than eleven separate NHL teams. LAFC wasn’t an outlier, either. The LA Galaxy were right behind LAFC, and behind them came rousing success story Atlanta United. Two spots later? New York FC checked in. All told, Major League Soccer contributed seven teams to Forbes’s global top 30, nearly a quarter of the MLS’s 29 franchises. All despite a level of competition where even its best team would be an underdog against the dregs of most of Europe’s best leagues.

My impression of the real reason Major League Soccer underperforms its financial capacity is that the phenomenon is somewhat circular. It starts with a natural talent disadvantage.

Proportionally to population, the talent level is higher in Europe, South America, and probably Africa than it is to the United States, something that can be incompletely explained by soccer having more competition from other sports in America than it does overseas. Major League Soccer starts at this disadvantage. The best young players? They aren’t in the United States. Teams have to go find them. Finding them is expensive and difficult. The cheapest talent in sports is usually the youngest. It isn’t as cheap for MLS teams.

As players age, perform, and become proven quantities, the market should open up, but it doesn’t open up to include MLS teams. This is where the circularity begins. While talent identification is an issue with the youngest players, the next wave up contends with the reputation of Major League Soccer. Why, at 23, would you risk sabotaging your career by leaving a top league to play in a mediocre one in a far-off country where you are an unknown? A player’s brand must be massive already to not be hurt by playing in the United States. The move only helps players if the step down in competition eases them out of their prime. We get Beckham and Messi, but merely for their victory laps.

There is also, though, a lot of choice involved. When Major League Soccer was founded in 1993, its founders were faced with choices between doing things the European way and following other American professional sports. At every stride, MLS made the choice that leads to poorer competition.

• Play on the European calendar? No. Too cold. Too complicated to work around the cold. The result? A poorer connection to the global cadence and an increase to the stigma.
• Establish a system of promotion and relegation? No. Too risky for investors. The result? A lack of meaningful competition at the bottom of the standings, one which has naturally begotten a bloated playoff system which devalues the regular season’s import.
• Forgo a salary cap? Again, no. This is terrible for investors. The result? Even if teams wanted to pay to become better, they are limited in how much better they can become.

This last one gets at the core difference in philosophy between American professional sports and the European soccer system. A long time ago, American owners realized they could artificially cap player wages and receive public support for the move, in the rare instance of the common man wanting the rich to become richer while the talented receive fewer rewards. How did they pull this off? They attributed the move to a desire for parity. They talked about competitive balance, and a gullible media lacking economic education took the bait. We hear about how much money the athletes rake in. It’s quite a lot to simply play a game. We don’t hear as much about how much money the owners make. It’s even more, and they don’t play. Were owners talented in another walk of life? Usually. But that’s not what’s making them their money here. They just paid enough and interviewed well enough with the other owners to be allowed entry into an exclusive cartel.

Major League Soccer made these choices later than other American leagues. The league was formed in the 1990s. They’d seen how American sports functioned, and they knew how soccer functioned overseas. The keepers of soccer in America had a choice. They could follow the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB, socializing professional sports by creating an in-group of owners concerned with protecting their protected status, or they could follow the European system, one whose ruthless, up–by–your–bootstraps meritocracy occasionally veers into oligarchy, but never to the extent of organizations in which 32 wealthy people make all the decisions and take a hefty cut of the cash, emboldened by legal protections bestowed on them by gullible legislators. (It is, of course, ironic that the American system involves no bootstraps. If you want bootstraps in this country’s athletics, turn to college sports.)

Soccer’s American stewards chose the American way of doing things. They chose the cartel approach. In one sense, it’s clearly working. Their owners have very valuable soccer teams. In the other, it’s a failure. Major League Soccer is a punchline. The teams all suck.

Note: The MLS Season started this past weekend. Hence, it’s on the mind.

What’s Going On With Kansas State and Jerome Tang?

After blowing a 25-point lead last night against the last place team in the Big 12, only to win the game in overtime, Jerome Tang complained about student attendance. It wasn’t unprovoked—Bramlage Coliseum was quite empty last night, visually—but it was odd timing. It would have made more sense if K-State kept its nose to the grindstone in the second half.

If this happened in isolation, we wouldn’t have noticed. But it’s been a strange twelve months for Jerome Tang and Manhattan, Kansas. To recap:

• March 2023: Behind the electricity and magic of Markquis Nowell, Kansas State plays its way to the Elite Eight, narrowly missing out on a Final Four berth in a three-point loss to FAU at Madison Square Garden. It’s only the program’s third Elite Eight in 35 years, and it comes in Tang’s first season as head coach. The turnaround from 14–17 to 26–10 is one of the best in the nation.
• April 2023: Despite brief rumors about interest from more powerful schools, Tang remains at K-State.
• 2023 offseason: Tang brings in Arthur Kaluma from the transfer portal, a skilled wing from Creighton who’s yet to max out his potential. He also brings in Tylor Perry, the North Texas point guard graded by EvanMiya as the 64^th-best player in the country in the 2022–23 season. The height and position similarities between Perry and Nowell lead many to expect big things from the transfer.
• October 2023: Returning forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin is arrested for alleged “disorderly conduct; brawling or fighting” at a bar in Aggieville. He is immediately suspended.
• November 2023: Kansas State opens the 2023–24 season ranked 25^th in the country on kenpom, and effectively ranked 35^th in the country by the AP Poll. Both rankings come from prior to Tomlin’s suspension.
• November 16^th, 2023: Tomlin enters into a diversion agreement with the City of Manhattan stemming from the October arrest.
• November–December 2023: Without Tomlin, K-State starts fine. They lose neutral-site games to USC and Miami, and they need overtime to escape Oral Roberts and North Alabama at home, but they beat Providence in the Bahamas and Villanova in Manhattan, both also in overtime. The Villanova game happens on December 5^th. Tomlin remains suspended, and Kansas State has a good record (7–2) but has been playing poorly (they’ve dropped to 55^th on kenpom).
• December 6^th, 2023: I’m not sure what provokes this to happen at this exact time, but students stage a protest on the lawn of K-State president Richard Linton, asking for the lifting of Tomlin’s suspension. David N’Guessan walks by the protest and posts a picture to his Instagram story with the caption “Free quan.” A video is posted purportedly showing Tomlin himself driving by and offering the protest his support, with Perry and possibly freshman Dorian Finister in the same vehicle.
• December 6^th, 2023: Later that day, K-State athletic director Gene Taylor announces Tomlin has been removed from the basketball team. K-State fans are outraged.
• December 7^th, 2023: Tang arrives before the beginning of a planned second protest at Linton’s house, persuading students to disperse rather than protest. Still, large sections of the K-State fanbase seem to view Linton as the one who made the decision to remove Tomlin, and express concern that Tang will be likelier to leave Kansas State as a result of the decision.
• December 9^th, 2023: Tomlin graduates Kansas State. Shortly thereafter, he transfers to Memphis, where he is eligible to play right away.
• December 2023–February 2024: Kansas State’s play continues to worsen. At one point, they lose seven of eight games in Big 12 play, and while each individual loss was either on the road or at home against a tournament team, the program’s NCAA Tournament chances dwindle. Tylor Perry’s three-point shooting percentage, 41% last season, stands only a little above the national average, at 33%. Kaluma grades out similarly on EvanMiya to his 2022–23 self. Perry is only now a top-400 player.

What we have in Manhattan, then, is a coach who may or may not have a rift with his university president, who is disappointed in the fanbase, who lost a key expected contributor for the whole season due to a poor decision from that player. If K-State was having a good year, K-State fans would be worried about Tang leaving. Since K-State is having this year…is that still a threat?

The relevant questions around Manhattan are 1) whether there is indeed any frustration with Tang towards Kansas State University and 2) whether a powerful enough school to poach Tang would still want to poach him, given his now mixed results. I don’t have answers to either of those. But they’re sure relevant in the Big 12 over these next two months.

The Rest

College basketball:

• A quick mention of Tennessee’s win over Texas A&M on Saturday, since we haven’t spoken of it yet: That was impressive! Tennessee looked great. Are they capable of winning the national title? Technically, yes, but their red flags remain larger than those of UConn, Purdue, Houston, and Arizona, and they’ve done less in the way of proving themselves than those teams have done. This upcoming stretch—Auburn (H), Alabama (A), South Carolina (A), Kentucky (H)—should give us a good look at them. At the moment, they’re the fifth team in that picture, but we don’t know how in focus fifth is.
• Kansas, winners of two straight and five of seven, hosts BYU tonight, and it would sure fit the narrative if the Jayhawks won big and put themselves a little further back into the national conversation, or at least in position to be there if Kevin McCullar returns. They’re a little like Auburn, in that their home/road splits are very lopsided. The McCullar thing changes it up.
• Kentucky’s at Mississippi State, and I swear we aren’t only focusing on Kentucky and Kansas because they’re bluebloods. They’re the two best teams with interesting games tonight. Also, their ceilings are higher than most teams of their stature. Partly because of the talent they attract as bluebloods. Kentucky is a puzzle, but on the aggregate, they’re playing close to the best they’ve played all season right now.

The NBA:

• Yes, it was a bad no-call which went around the Pistons last night. Not sure what to do about that one. Will we get another protest?
• Jaime Jaquez Jr. had a big game in Sacramento, helping lead the shorthanded Heat to a big win.
• The Mavs play the Cavs tonight, the Rockets play the Thunder, and the Knicks host the Pelicans. The Sixers are in Boston, but things aren’t going great for the Sixers right now.

The NHL:

• A few good ones between good teams last night, with plenty of dramatic scoring in each. The Kraken took down the Bruins in a shootout. The Islanders beat the Stars in OT. The Kings had a lead on the Oilers late in the second period, but Edmonton blitzed past them, with Connor McDavid picking up his 70^th assist of the year on the eventual game-winner.
• Tonight’s slate is massive. Highlight is probably the Knights visiting the Leafs. The Knights are still a point up on the Oilers for home-ice advantage in the Pacific 2/3 series, but the Oilers have two games in hand, and the Kings are hanging around that space as well.

NASCAR:

• What a finish on Sunday. What a race! Real breathtaking stuff, and a great example of why superspeedways are so much fun. I know you can’t do them every week, but a good superspeedway race is better than any other good race.

Chicago, and Iowa State:

• We’re still a little out of touch on Chicago news, but obviously, the Cubs signed Cody Bellinger, and we are of course very happy with the short-term, high-AAV deal. It’s fine to overpay players. It’s only a problem if it affects your flexibility. I will say: The Cardinals remain better than the Cubs on paper. The Cubs overachieved their talent last year. The Cardinals underachieved theirs. The Cardinals made a number of specific upgrades in high-leverage places this offseason, mostly in the rotation, and while the pitchers were older and the approach swam against the current, that can also be construed as buying low. More on this as the season itself approaches, and who knows, maybe the Cubs go sign Jordan Montgomery and assuage my concerns, but I am not making jokes about the Cardinals’ age right now, nor do I think those joke are going to…ahem…age as well as the Cardinals do.
• Iowa State has a new offensive coordinator, promoting tight ends coach Taylor Mouser from within. Mouser has been in Ames a long time, and Iowa State’s produced some great tight ends in his tenure. Does that translate to being a good OC? It isn’t actively a bad sign.
• The Bulls host the Pistons tonight, in what will hopefully serve as a chance to build back a little momentum. The Blackhawks are idle.

One more:

• The judge in the Virginia & Tennessee vs. the NCAA case issued a preliminary injunction forbidding the NCAA from enforcing bans on NIL as inducement. While the case will continue, the injunction is being taken by many as a sign of where this is headed. Personally, this feels like it might help college athletics. NIL inducement is happening. Its gray status in the rulebook unnecessarily complicates it. Get it in the open. Learn how it operates. Then, see what guardrails need to be erected. There’s an impatience with this transformation of college sports, and I get that. We want to know that the final outcome is going to be ok. But the best way to get to an optimal outcome with this—one where college athletes are making a good share of the money they generate but college sports still look similar to the institutions we love—is for everyone to slow down and let this stuff happen. We can get there. Let’s see how it really works, over the table, before we try to prescribe perfect solutions to problems we aren’t sure exist.